At 63, he travels the world, sharing his Argentine paradise and the secret of making dreams come true

Omar Castigliego gets up every morning before 6 a.m., enjoys a hearty breakfast and leaves home to go where the sea is challenging and the horizon is endless. At the age of 63, many oceans and rivers have crossed his life, but the coast, that of his beloved Mar del Plata, still moves him continuously.

He arrives at the beach with his camera in hand, ready to enjoy the sunrise, that moment of emergence, of rebirth, that reminds him that as long as there is life, anything is possible. “And I think you can get better every day,” he usually thinks before each sunrise. “It lies within ourselves to have the strength to carry on and always believe that life is one and that you have to enjoy every moment when you wake up every morning. because we don’t know when we will leave this glass we live in.”

And with these thoughts, Omar photographs the landscapes that surround him, especially the surfers who connect with nature through a sport that he himself makes vibrate through his lens.

Omar had a happy childhood and youth, times full of fond memories in the La Boca neighborhood and in his home on Salvadores Street. He will never forget the time when he was very young when he took a trip to Córdoba with his parents. They stayed at a hotel and Omar couldn’t stop crying. He was still heartbroken as they left the shelter and sat in the last seat of a bus. Then the father took his Konica camera and hung it around his neck. The little boy immediately stopped crying. He was barely two years old.

He became a professional photographer in his youth, but the passion for capturing magic through his lens has always been a part of his being, and this childhood anecdote was just the first clue.

As soon as he completed his studies, he perfected himself and began practicing his profession, ready to go through all the fields related to photography. And he did, between weddings, birthdays, models, schools, architecture, sporting events, carnivals, media, fauna, flora and various landscapes. And along the way, he soon discovered that there was a nomad living there, that photography had to offer him its greatest treasures if he was ready to travel the world.

During these years he gained one of the greatest realizations: that anything is possible He had to learn to strip himself and find beauty and happiness in simplicity. With this spirit, Omar left Buenos Aires and set off to travel Argentina and then America until he landed on European soil.

Argentina continued to be a port of arrival, although increasingly sporadic. In the 90s, Omar took up the habit of taking a ticket to a destination like Brazil and from there exploring different corners with his backpack: “I love Brazil, back then I dedicated a lot to landscape photography,” he remembers.

Between 1993 and 1995 he lived in Madrid, which became a center for learning about Europe and for capturing fascinating images of the Iberian Peninsula and the Old World: “What impressed me most was Toledo, with its medieval castles everywhere you looked,” he says. “Paris… so iconic with the stunning views from the Eiffel Tower. Then London, England in general. Beautiful, “Europe offers impressive architecture.”

But Brazil and the sea in general always attracted him, with its magnetic energy and its sports in connection with nature. Omar wanted to learn to surf when he was 27, but he didn’t. Instead, over the years, he gradually began to put aside the different areas of photography to focus on one: Water sports, especially surfing.

“I started to connect with my work in surfing in Playa Grande, for surf schools and in championships. The latter, the championships, began to fascinate me until years later, in 2016/2017, when I fully entered the sport at a competitive level,” says Omar, who during his travels immersed himself in the different cultures and architectures and captured images of other fascinating activities such as kitesurfing, SUP surfing and the Big SUP.

And so Omar started taking his best photos and at the same time He understood that there were many ways to live and fulfill dreams: “I started surfing with my imagination.” he assures.

After several years of nomadic living, Omar decided to find a more defined anchorage. The Argentine capital was no longer an option, he needed the sea breeze and the challenge of its waves. Just as his career was defined at the age of two when his father gave him a camera, the search for his place in the world went back to his childhood.

“I remember leaving the Hotel Luz y Fuerza in Colón and Las Heras with my mom and dad. I asked my parents when we would move to Mar del Plata. “I was five years old” smile.

Forty-five years later, Omar decided it was time to fulfill that dream and find his sky and his sea and pursue his passions in La Feliz.

“I also dream of living in other places and after the pandemic I returned to Rio de Janeiro in search of waves and surfing. I won three championships with the best in the world, I saw Filipe Toledo win the crown, I participated in the WSL league, among other things, “It was a dream come true.” reveals. “But today I choose Argentina as I continue with new travel plans around the world; I love Mar del Plata.”

Omar watches his journey with pride. He was always attracted to challenges and went there, without fear of the unknown, to achieve his goals.

Today, at 63, he lives the life he dreamed of in his early childhood: he is a photographer and has his home in Mar del Plata. Additionally, for nearly a decade, he has devoted himself almost exclusively to capturing images related to water sports, a passion born of being encouraged to explore life and which he lives firsthand through his lens. For him, no dream is impossible to fulfill, the secret lies in understanding that sometimes they traveled in other ways, on alternative paths.

And so every morning after breakfast he looks for the sunrises at dawn, walks through the water, captures postcards on camera and chats with the surfers.

“Action is passion, it gets you out of the routine,” he says. “But you have to learn to let go. For me, quality of life means living with the bare necessities, a roof over your head, a bed to rest, healthy food, good friends. Simply”.

“Life is a constant learning. I came here at 63 years old and learned to live as relaxed as possible,” he continues. “My job is to be constantly connected to nature. The years have given me very good and not so good experiences, life itself. Two beautiful children that I love and enjoy when we are together. My mother, my brother, my nieces, my friends.” I identify with a sentence I read somewhere: “I want my hands to swing freely in the wind so that people understand that we are born empty-handed and leave empty-handed when the most precious thing is lost: time.”he concludes.